In This Digital Age, Where Have All the Love Letters Gone?

I want to talk about the death of love letters for a moment. Let’s trace my personal history. Notes passed in class or slipped in lockers, “S.W.A.K.” Dispatches from a foreign boyfriend I’d left behind after a year abroad: pre-stamped aérogrammes, blue envelopes, handwriting tiny enough to fit within the prescribed space. (I briefly was engaged to this man, or as engaged as one can be when one is 20 and a pothead and a creative writing major.) There was a broke, computer-less boyfriend in the Midwest who couldn’t clean the litter box or graduate from college, but could get it together enough to write me long letters. And, of course, postcards from favorite girlfriends, a different kind of romance: Wish you were here, my favorite, beautiful pet.

Sadly, e-mail has triggered the decline of the handwritten note; I have seen its near-disappearance in my lifetime. I do not mourn the death of the printed letter in a snobby, East Coast, patrician way—“Where have our manners gone?”—but because I love objects, I love paper, and I love something that I can hold to my chest for a moment. Still, I bear no grudge against the e-mail form itself. There is room within it for full sentences and complete thoughts. The breaks between paragraphs offer white space—a moment of clarity, a pause to breathe. Tell me how you feel and I’ll listen. One might even put a “Dear” at the beginning and a “Love” at the end.

Lately I’ve watched e-mails be replaced by texts, which can be cold and insensitive, or at least confusing. Last summer I dated a man who started out strong, e-mailing me lovely, long notes. We were getting to know each other; he had compliments to give. But then we started texting as a matter of convenience, and soon enough, he never e-mailed me again. Why e-mail a full emotional statement when, instead, you can text a totally insignificant and ambiguous half-considered phrase? He was a bit of a sociopath anyway, as newly single men in their forties can sometimes be. But still, What did he mean by that? I wondered again and again, scrolling through a hurried message. There are only so many things you can blame on autocorrect.

Recently a friend from San Francisco messaged me in a panic. She was texting with a man she had been seeing. They were trying to plan their next date while he was at brunch. She said something sweet; specifically, that it didn’t matter what they did, she just wanted to see him. He replied that his food had arrived and gave her a “Hmmm” and a smiley face. She was devastated. What did the smiley face mean? What did the “Hmmm” mean? What did the smiley face and the “Hmmm” mean together? There was an ellipsis, too. An ellipsis is a giant ocean of possibilities.

This exchange never would have happened over e-mail, let alone in a letter. Had they been e-mailing, he would have just eaten his food and waited to reply. Then again, maybe she should have let him eat his brunch. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t have been texting during brunch. How would he have responded if, instead, she picked up the phone and called him? If he had to deal with truth and sincerity and real emotion?

I would love a phone call from a man. I would love to hear the sound of his voice. I used to be scared of phone calls because you can’t see the other person’s expression. I wanted to know if they were smiling or not. Now I long for tone. Tone would be so sexy. I long to know if I’ve charmed a man, if I’ve made him laugh. LOL, you seem insincere to me sometimes. Real-life laughter would please me, would flatter me.

Texting also makes it easier to be a little naughty—perhaps too easy. Time flies when you’re exchanging emoticons. You type faster than you think. Suddenly you’ve not only agreed to the most deviant of behavior, but you’ve also suggested acts you’ve never articulated before and perhaps have only heard about in a movie. (Never mind what kind of movie.) They happen fast, fast, fast, these texts. Perhaps the end of romance spells the beginning of sex. Few people say “sweetheart” when they’re sexting.

This past winter, a long one for all of us, I e-mailed with a man I once had a brief affair with. He lives in another city, halfway across the country. He liked to e-mail me from his Laundromat. I liked to picture him sitting next to the whirring machines, the balletic rotation of the whites, darks, and colors. I swear I could smell the detergent through my computer screen. We would talk about our creative projects, and he would tell me I was great and talented and beautiful. Once he told me I was “hot stuff.”

Eventually we exchanged our street addresses so that we could send each other letters, but we never did. We never made it that far. It would have meant something to the both of us that I don’t think we were ready for: the permanence of a letter.

Disclosure: A few small details have been changed for privacy.

Jami Attenberg is the author of four books of fiction, including The Middlesteins. Her next book, Saint Mazie, is forthcoming in 2015.